NCAA closes book on textbook case, and it's not a happy ending for Alabama

This article was published in the Wednesday, March 24, 2010 edition
of The Birmingham News

TUSCALOOSA -- The NCAA's Division I Infrac­tions Appeals Committee on Tuesday upheld an NCAA ruling that the University of Alabama must vacate 21 football victories from 2005, 2006 and part of 2007 be­cause of rules violations.

Alabama President Robert Witt and Athletics Director Mal Moore expressed disap­pointment in the ruling, which concludes the case and means a 10-2 season in 2005 officially becomes 0-2, a 6-7 season in 2006 be­comes 0-7, and a 7-6 season in 2007 becomes 2-6.

In 2007, Alabama self-re­ported violations involving distribution of textbooks to 201 athletes in 16 sports. They were found to have re­ceived impermissible bene­fits by obtaining textbooks for themselves or their friends to which they weren't entitled.

The games vacated are those in which offending players participated. Vacat­ing a win means giving up the win but does not turn it into a loss. Opponents can't claim a win.

Last June 11, he NCAA Committee on Infractions ruled that Alabama was guilty of major violations. In addition to the vacated wins, the school was fined $43,900 and placed on three years' probation in 16 sports. Six days later, the university announced it would appeal the vacating of records penalty in foot­ball, men's tennis and track and field.

The history angle

In its subsequent argu­ments, Alabama took excep­tion to the Committee on Infractions' claim that the school's "abysmal" and un­precedented history of so many infractions cases justi­fied vacating records. The Committee on Infractions described Alabama as a "se­rial repeat violator."

Alabama argued further that vacating wins was an abuse of discretion because the penalty failed to con­sider the university's coop­eration, departed from text­book case precedent and departed from vacated-wins precedent.

Witt and Moore issued written statements Tuesday.

"The Appeals Committee acknowledged that their de­cision in our case is not con­sistent with the NCAA's prior textbook and vacation­of- wins cases, which was the heart of UA's appeal," Witt said.

"Despite that acknowl­edgment, however, the Ap­peals Committee did not find an abuse of discretion. We are disappointed by the committee's inconsistent decision given the negative impact the decision has on hundreds of uninvolved stu­dent- athletes and their coaches."

Moore also was let down by Tuesday's news.

"We're very disappointed because the Committee missed an excellent oppor­tunity to follow its prece­dent set in recent cases, the precedent we followed due to the nature of the case," Moore said.

"We have thoroughly ad­dressed the situation and have taken corrective meas­ures."

Alabama's appeal cited four major infractions cases involving violations of the textbook rule, all since 2005. The schools -- Ball State, Temple, Weber State and Texas State -- did not have wins vacated.

Leigh Tiffin, the Crimson Tide's place-kicker 2006-09, said Tuesday he does not believe the punishment fits the violation.

"It seems slightly unfair to guys who did the right things, guys who played on those teams and were part of those victories," he said. "Everybody gets discredited when you do that because of a couple people's mis­takes. It seems an awfully harsh punishment to essen­tially wipe out an entire two or three seasons over some­thing like that."

With the ruling, official records will show Alabama with 792 all-time football victories rather than 813, dropping the Crimson Tide from sixth to eighth on the NCAA Division I-A victory list. Penn State and Okla­homa now move ahead of Alabama.

Fifteen years ago, Ala­bama ranked third on the all-time victories list and was within striking distance of No. 1 Michigan, which now has 877 victories. The NCAA has removed 29 wins from Alabama since 1995; otherwise, the Crimson Tide would rank fifth behind Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame and Nebraska.

The vacation of a Cotton Bowl victory that capped the 2005 season moves Alabama one behind Southern Cali­fornia in all-time bowl victo­ries. It is possible USC's number could be changed by its pending infractions case with the NCAA.

Cotton Bowl trophy

The Cotton Bowl has not determined whether it will continue to recognize Ala­bama as its 2006 champion. Cotton Bowl President Rick Baker said in a prepared statement Tuesday that his association's board of direc­tors will evaluate the NCAA ruling and confer with Ala­bama and the SEC on how to proceed. The Cotton Bowl has not experienced this situation previously.

"At this time we have no intention to ask for the re­turn of the championship trophy from the 2006 Clas­sic," Baker said.

With the vacating of 16 wins in 2005 and 2006, for­mer coach Mike Shula's re­cord changes from 26-24 to 10-24. Nick Saban's record at Alabama changes from 33-8 to 28-8 due to the va­cating of five wins in 2007, and his career record goes from 124-50-1 to 119-50-1.

Alabama will leave on­-the-field results intact in media guides and record books, but will note by as­terisk that the games later were vacated. Final season records for the years af­fected will be changed to re­flected the vacated wins.